He learnt Chinese characters and Korean philology from the age of 14.

He worked as a Korean language lecturer at different educational institutions. He played a pivotal role as a member of the "Korean Language Institute" at the educational institution of the Federal Government of Ri Dynasty.

After the Japanese imperialists fabricated the "Korea-Japan Annexation Treaty", he organized the Korean Language Training Course and the Korean Literature Institute, instilling the anti-Japanese patriotic idea into people and working hard to teach them Korean language.

He authored a series of works including "Language", "Korean Grammar and Phonetics," "Korean Grammar" and "Phonetics" conducive to laying a foundation of philology in the modern times.

He, in his works, tried hard to use Korean letters as many as possible instead of Chinese characters and studied writing regulations for the purpose of setting right the confused orthography.

Characteristic of his linguistic study and activities was that he founded modern language theory and widely expanded the Korean language study and the movement for learning the language in various aspects.